Choose who sees your ad and what they are watching at the time Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own Early adopter and YouTube ads -- words you may not expect to find in the same sentence right now Even though YouTube advertising has been around for years only 9 percent of small businesses have jumped on board to take advantage of the platform Meanwhile changes that have been put in place over the last year now make advertising on YouTube more affordable and more powerful than ever Related YouTube Stars Brooklyn and Bailey Started Appearing in Videos at Age 9 Now They Have Close to 55 Million Subscribers One thing that makes an online business attractive to investors is a diversified advertising and customer acquisition strategy Within reason the more platforms from which a business is drawing paying customers the better More revenue sources create more stability and less risk in general For buyers looking for a growth opportunity especially in the product-based ecommerce space a company with strong revenues that hasnt tapped into YouTube yet can be gold For both buyers and sellers when it comes to YouTube advertising these are the things to know YouTube has an enormous and engaged audience Theres still a barrier to entry creating video is more involved than a search ad From a CPA standpoint its still very affordable The audience targeting capabilities are incredible Why Advertising on YouTube is Better than Ever The advanced targeting features New integrations with Google search have recently brought the audience-targeting power of Google Adwords now Google Ads to YouTube where a global audience watches 1 billion hours of video a day More than half of those viewers are watching on mobile so it cant exactly be described as a captive audience but its a highly-engaged audience YouTube has become a major go-to platform for product searches so consumers come there looking for information to help with purchase decisions Product reviews unboxing videos and product comparisons are popular When you create an ad on YouTube you get to choose who sees it as well as what type of content theyre watching at the time You can target audiences based on what theyre searching on Google how theyve interacted with your business in the past as well as their interests and demographics Related How This One Audience Behavior Dramatically Affects Your Digital Marketing Youll also choose whether viewers see your ad in-stream or as a stand-alone suggested video and whether they must watch your ad to the end before continuing with their viewing or can skip it Non-skippable or pre-roll ads are 15-20 seconds long while skippable ads may be skipped after 5 seconds and can be anywhere from 12 seconds to 6 minutes long Either way you have a short window of time to grab the viewers attention The ability to pay for conversions rather than views YouTube advertising is still an affordable option Views cost an average of 006 per click there versus 1 - 2 per click on Google search With YouTubes TrueView ads viewers must watch at least 30 seconds of your ad for you to pay for the view But CPV Cost Per View is not the only bidding strategy on the platform With the new TrueView for Action option you can bid on a target CPA This option uses tracking codes for your website or shopping cart and allows you to pay for actual conversions rather than views Low risk highly targeted advertising Wwhat more could any business ask for The engaged viewers As I mentioned before YouTube has become a product search engine The platform now has more than a billion users each month and an average-mobile-session duration of around 40 minutes When we spoke to Brett Curry of OMG Commerce on the Quiet Light Podcast recently he pointed out that viewers are there to learn and do not just watch That viewer intent makes your video ads the perfect place to solve potential customers problems and direct them to your products According to Curry to really take advantage of the platform use the cards feature which makes your ads more interactive and places CTAs on screen and follow this general format Hook the viewers at the beginning Lead with the strongest benefit and show dont tell Include social proof Include language that eliminates risk and objections Dont expect viewers to act Tell them what to do by ending on a strong CTA Curry has seen companies from across industries have great success with YouTube ads He believes that while the platform was once the right place for brand awareness the climate has shifted somewhat Companies will have the best chance for success with more straightforward direct-response videos now According to Google brands using TrueView see views of previously existing content increase by up to 500 percent after running video ads Its an important top-of-funnel strategy Overall YouTube offers less competitive real estate than other social platforms without the high price tag The idea of creating video ads can be intimidating but the pay-off for those willing to jump in is likely to be big